


Team Building Exercise #2

by theappleppielifestyle



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M, Sharing a Bed, Team Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-25
Updated: 2020-02-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:15:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22898611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theappleppielifestyle/pseuds/theappleppielifestyle
Summary: “You’re joking,” Tony says.Fury fixes him with his good eye.“Stark,” he says. “Name one time I’ve joked with you.”(Or, this year's team building exercise is the team sharing beds. Bruce Hulks out, the team plays Feely Cup and Thor's hair gets braided.)
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 49
Kudos: 928





	Team Building Exercise #2

“You’re joking,” Tony says.

Fury fixes him with his good eye. 

“Stark,” he says. “Name one time I’ve joked with you.”   


To Tony’s left, Steve takes a breath, and Tony looks over in surprise and waits for Steve to list every time Fury has brought out his specific brand of dry wit with Tony. It’s usually in a life or death situation, and it usually gets a yelled reply from Tony, who will be trying not to die as Fury says it through the comms.

Tony looks over at Steve, grinning, but Fury pins Steve with his good eye and Steve lets out the breath without saying anything.

_ Coward _ , Tony mouths at him.

Steve raises his eyebrows.  _ Who, me? _

“I’m not joking,” Fury says. “The team bonding exercise this year is everyone shares a bed with each other. Two at a time. Have fun.”

Tony sighs. When Fury had said it, he’d hoped to get it all over with a sleepover in the lounge, slumber-party style. Tony’s never had a slumber party, the only times he’s woken up in a room with a bunch of people has involved a lot of drugs and alcohol, but he’s seen movies. He knows what a slumber party looks like. And apparently it doesn’t matter, because they’ll be shoved together two at a time, no food or movies to distract them.

Clint calls, “Did Coulson come up with this,” down the hall as Fury leaves. 

Fury just waves.

As the elevator door closes behind him, the Avengers look at each other.

“It shouldn’t be that weird,” Natasha says. “Most of us have seen each other bleeding. Or on the verge of passing out. Crying. And some of us have already slept in the same bed together. For missions,” she clarifies when Tony smiles at her. “Body heat, or not having enough space.”

“Sure,” Tony says. “Body heat. Definitely.”

Thor leans back against the kitchen counter, says, “We do a form of this in Asgard. I look forward to a night of bonding with each of you.”

“Uh, yeah,” Tony says. “Buddy, what exactly goes into that _ night of bonding  _ back home? I don’t think-”

Bruce says, “At least this will be easy to get done. Better than being put in a forest for a week to hunt each other with paintball guns, Hunger-Games style. I didn’t see the point in that, from a bonding perspective.”

Clint hops up on the bench next to him. “I liked last year.”

“Of course  _ you  _ liked last year,” Bruce starts, but Steve cuts him off.

“We’ll set up a roster,” he says. 

“Aye aye, Cap’n,” Tony says. He even throws in a salute, which Steve always looks scandalized by, though he’s much better at hiding it after two years.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


The roster goes on the fridge. On it, everyone has their name, and a list of their teammates next to it. They can cross it off as each person shares a bed with them.

First up for Tony is Bruce.

  
  
  
  
  
  


Their schedules are easy enough to arrange, except for the bedtime. They both have hectic schedules at the best of times, so that first night they end up rescheduling a time, pushing it back over and over as they work in their separate labs, and before they know it the sun’s up and they’ve missed their chance.

The next night, they crawl into bed with each other at 11pm.

“Scheduling high five,” Tony says, and then tries not to feel like an idiot for it.

Bruce stares for a second, but then reaches up and high fives him.

They turn away from each other and settle in. They’re in Tony’s bed, so it’s big enough for them to sprawl out without touching each other. Still, Tony keeps his limbs in close to his body.

“Hey,” he says after maybe a minute of silence. “If I fart in the middle of the night, will you Hulk out?”

Bruce shifts in the bed.

“Try it,” he says. “See what happens.”   


Tony makes a face. 

“That was a joke,” Bruce adds after a moment. “I’ve shared beds with people - well, one person - since becoming Hulk. It’s - fine.”

“Right,” Tony says. “How is Betty, anyway?”

Bruce hesitates. Then: “She’s good. Still traveling a lot.”

Tony nods against his pillow. It had taken Bruce a while to open up about the woman in the photograph in his lab. Even after two years, Tony doesn’t know much about her beyond what he’s Googled.

“Well,” Tony says, “Let us know when she swings through. We’ll get Vietnamese food.”

“Vietnamese food?”   


“Yeah, you mentioned she liked-?”

“Right,” Bruce says, sounding surprised, but also pleased, so Tony thinks he’s in the clear.

There’s another silence, and Tony thinks the talk is over for the night. He settles further into the mattress.

Then Bruce says, “How’s Pepper?”

“Uh,” Tony says. “Still my ex-girlfriend. And co-runner of my company. And friend.”

“Were-?”

“Yeah, things were weird at first, after - after. But now it’s fine. It’s good, actually. We’re good.”   


“That’s good.”   


“Mm-hm.”

Bruce pauses. “How’s Steve?”

“Steve,” Tony repeats. He knows what Bruce is alluding to, but he’s also not going to make it easy. “Steve our teammate, who you see everyday? Pretty sure you know how he’s going.”

“Alright,” Bruce says.

They lapse back into silence. 

Tony prepares himself for a long, sleepless night. Sometimes his brain starts whirring and won’t turn off. He caught a nap today, but it was only three hours and he’s exhausted, but that doesn’t stop his brain. He has to get a good three-day exhaustion on before the tiredness starts overriding his brain when he gets like this.

So he lies still and tries to breathe as quiet as he can.

Twenty minutes pass.

Bruce shifts in his spot. Quietly, as if not to wake someone, he says: “Tony.”   


“Yeah?”

Bruce sighs. “How are your experiments going with the new-”

“God-awful.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Tony says, and launches into an explanation, relieved. When Bruce turns over to ask a question about the power source, he looks pretty relieved as well.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


They end up getting six hours of sleep. Which is pretty good, considering how much they worked themselves up in explaining their projects to each other.

When they stumble into the kitchen the next day, it’s still morning. Just. Steve is in there eating brunch, because he has to consume a ridiculous amount of calories to break even. He eats like a Hobbit, second breakfast and everything.

“How was the bonding,” he asks as he eats his eggs.

“Great,” Tony says. “No bonding has ever compared. We’re convinced we were separated at birth.”

Bruce snorts. He pours Tony a coffee, spoons sugar into it and hands it to him.

“Thanks,” Tony says, and sips at it. It’s black with the perfect amount of sugar, which is how he takes it in the morning. He takes a second to feel weirdly touched that Bruce remembers how he takes his coffee at specific times - after lunch he usually has something more fancy - and then says, “How about you, Steve? Who’d you have again?”

“Nat,” Steve says. 

“How was it?”

“Fine. We slept. Talked a bit.” Steve pauses. “She’s going to show me some midair maneuvers later today.”

“Fun,” Tony says, and makes a mental note to check who he’s sleeping with tonight.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


It’s his turn with Nat. They take her bed. It’s a little smaller than Tony’s, but still big enough that they don’t come close to touching.

“I’m starting to think they’re making the team bonding exercises this bad on purpose,” Natasha tells him as they get into bed. She’s wearing a headband to get her hair out of her face. Also socks, because she’s the kind of person who wears socks to bed. 

“What, you didn’t enjoy the Hunger Games?”   


“I enjoyed it,” Natasha says. “I just don’t think hiding out and mock-killing each other was a good way to make six adults bond with each other.” 

“Some of us bonded,” Tony says. “Didn’t you camp out in the trees with Clint for most of it?”

“I did,” Natasha says. “And it was a fun week for me and Clint. For me and the rest of you? Not so much.”   


“I hear that,” Tony says. He’d teamed up with Steve and the two of them had hid in a cave for a few days, catching fish and blowing up everyone else’s supplies. It had been a good time, apart from the panic attack Tony had on that first night. Apparently he wasn’t good in caves after Afghanistan. Steve had been around for it, which was humiliating, no matter how many times Steve told him it didn’t make him think of Tony any differently.

“So you think it’s gonna be a thing,” Tony says. “We’ll just keep having awful team building exercises until we the team folds in twenty years?”

Natasha raises her eyebrows at  _ twenty years _ , but shrugs.

“Maybe,” she says. “Or the past two have been an outlier. Forced proximity can be useful for a deeper sense of closeness, but in practice it can be hit or miss.”

“Yeah?” Tony gets the feeling there’s a story there. Many, probably.

“Yes,” Natasha says, and doesn’t elaborate.

Tony doesn’t pry. When it comes to dark backstories, Natasha usually has all of them beat.

“So how does this go,” Tony says. “Sleepovers, I mean. Slumber parties. Is there a difference? Anyway, don’t we braid each other’s hair and talk about boys?”

Natasha snorts. She turns over in bed so she’s facing him, chins herself on her hand and flutters her eyelashes. “You won’t  _ believe  _ what I heard Steve  _ say  _ about you.”

Tony laughs. “Yeah? What’d he say?”

Natasha’s gaze goes a little more serious. Her mouth ticks, and Tony feels Seen in a way that makes him want to squirm.

Natasha turns onto her back.

“I had a lot of slumber parties as a kid,” she says. “Or, there were a lot of times where me and a bunch of girls slept in the same room together. There wasn’t any talk of boys, but we did do each other’s hair sometimes.”   


“I bet,” Tony says, because he can’t think of anything else to say. He knows shards of this story, mostly from her file - but Natasha doesn’t talk about it much.

Her lips curl. It’s not entirely a happy smile, and she keeps her gaze on the ceiling.

“Does boarding school count as a slumber party,” Tony tries.

The faraway look leaves Natasha. She tilts her head, her hair smearing against the pillow.

“I don’t think so,” she says. “But if I can make an argument for my slumber parties, you can make an argument for yours.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


There’s some Hulk fallout to deal with the next morning. 

“He didn’t want to play Feely Cup,” is Clint’s explanation. 

Tony assumes Clint tried to get Bruce to play it at 1am, or nudged him with the cup for minutes on end until Bruce snapped.

Tony calls in some builders to fix the new hole in the guest room - which was a good call, not doing it in Bruce’s or Clint’s room - and then joins the others in the lounge to play Feely Cup. All of Clint’s talk had gotten people interested.

Tony takes a seat next to Bruce, who is wearing a new pair of glasses and glowering at the cup.

“It’s a stupid game,” he says when Tony gives him a look.

Tony looks over at Steve, who had been watching a blindfolded Thor put his hand in a cup and feel at a harmonica. Steve smiles at Tony, big at first, the smile he pulls when the teammates are being ridiculous. Then his smile shrinks, turns into something smaller and softer. This smile is - not new, but close to it.    


Tony had missed out on slumber parties, but he’d also missed out on schoolgirl crushes. When Steve smiles at him like that, he thinks he gets the gist of what it must’ve been like if he’d had the chance as a kid. 

Tony tries not to do something stupid, like blush - he’s forty  _ fucking  _ years old - and instead turns his gaze back to Thor, who is frowning in concentration as he feels at the harmonica inside the cup.

“I should get extra points,” says a blindfolded Thor. “I would like to see all of you playing this game with objects from my homeworld.”

“Next time we visit Asgard,” Natasha promises him, “We’ll play Feely Cup.”

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Thor is up next. 

They take Thor’s bed, which is - okay, probably bigger than Tony’s. He’s man enough to admit it. Guy’s got a bigger bed, which makes sense. Tony’s a billionaire, but Thor’s a  _ prince _ . Tony’s used to luxury, but his version doesn’t line up to the crown prince of another dimension.

“So what  _ is  _ this like in your world,” Tony says when they get in bed. “You said there was a version of it-”

Thor nods. “Yes, as a bonding ritual for people going into battle together. We paint runes on our bodies and sleep in the same bed so we might deepen the bond between us, which in turn will help us defeat our enemies.”   


He grins. “I confess I didn’t find much use in it in my youth. Bonding with my battlemates, sure, but I did not need help defeating my enemies! I charged off on my own many times. Used to piss everyone off.”

“It still does,” Tony says.

Thor laughs. He slaps Tony’s shoulder, and Tony lets out an  _ oof _ .

“I barely do that now! You do that more than me.”

“Yeah, alright,” Tony says, rubbing his shoulder. “I’ll give you that. Okay, I’m glad it was really just bonding. I was worried you were gonna turn up expecting to sleep with all of us for the sake of the team.”

“We are sleeping together,” Thor says, and then grins again. “Yes, yes, I know what you mean, do not make that face. I know what was what people thought. The first night, I pretended to think that was going to happen with Steve.”

Tony jerks. “With  _ St  _ \- what-”

Thor shakes with laughter. The bed’s big, but he moves in so they’re almost touching.

“He could not tell if I was joking or not,” he says. “He caught on eventually. But his face before that was most hilarious! And he was most flattering.”   


“Flattering?”

Thor’s face goes faux-serious. “Our Captain turned me down  _ very  _ gently. Said all these things about how handsome I was.”

“While he was turning you down.”   


“Yes, while he was turning me down,” Thor says. Something flickers across his face, and this time his serious expression is more genuine.

“He has no interest in me, shield-brother,” he says. “His interests lie elsewhere. As I’m sure you know.”

Tony’s mind flies in a dozen different directions. He reigns them right back in.

“Uh,” he says. “Do I know?”

Thor scrutinizes him. Tony scrutinizes Thor right back.

Thor leans back. “If it is a secret, I will not be the one to tell it. But I do not think it is a secret. Anyway!”   


He lifts his hands, starts undoing the plaits in his hair. Tony watches it come loose.

“I have been told that this is an important bonding ritual when sleeping in the same bed with shield-brothers,” he says. “Since you don’t have enough hair to braid, we will have to settle for mine.”

Tony fights a smile.

“Did Clint tell you this?”

“Yes.”   


“Who else have you-”

“Steve enjoyed it,” Thor says. “He was quite good at it, too. Nimble fingers.”

Tony grins to himself as he imagines Steve resigning himself to the situation, then actually getting into it. Thor’s hair does look silky, and Steve does like working with his hands.

Thor turns his back to Tony, shaking his hair out.

Tony rolls his tongue in his mouth.

“I’ve never braided hair before,” he admits.

“It is easy,” Thor says. “Or, it can be. We will not have you do the complicated braids.”

“I think I can manage a basic plait,” Tony says, and separates Thor’s hair into three sections. Then he pauses. “Actually, just give me the instructions for whatever Steve did. If he can do it, so can I.”

Thor laughs and reaches for his phone.   


“Here,” he says. “There is a Youtube instructor who explains it much better than I.”   
  


  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


When Clint’s turn comes, Tony’s first words to him after they get into bed are: “I don’t care what you told Thor, we’re not braiding each other’s hair.”   


Clint cracks up.

“Can’t if we wanted to,” he says through the laughter. “Shit, that was great. You know he got me to do it? It was actually-”

“-pretty nice, yeah,” Tony says. “Guess your prank backfired.”   


“It didn’t backfire,” Clint says. “Just turned out more wholesome than I expected.”

He flops down into the mattress and pulls the covers up to his chest.

“It was so relaxing,” Tony says after a moment.

“ _So_ relaxing,” Clint agrees. “How’d your braids turn out?”   


“Great! I tried a few.”   


“Did you take-”

Tony gets his phone from the bedside table and starts scrolling through the pictures he’d taken. They’d done three hairstyles over the night, almost three hours’ worth of elaborate braiding, some of which had looked better on Thor than others.

“Nice,” Clint says. He pauses. “Did Thor say that thing about how it was an honor?”

“Yep,” Tony says. “Felt weird.”   


“Weird,” Clint agrees. “But-”

“Good, too,” Tony says. “Like-”

He stops. Tries to come up with a word for it and can’t, not without sounding far too honest than he wants.

“Like patching each other up after a fight,” Clint says.

Tony snaps his fingers. “Right. Or - something. That sense of - being on the same team.”

“Got each other’s backs,” Clint says, in a carefully casual voice, as he slaps Tony lightly on the shoulder.

“Right,” Tony says. “That.”   


Clint snorts. Looks away, like this isn’t where he thought he’d end up either. He scoots away, says, “So, are we topping and tailing?”

“Uh,” Tony says.

Clint rolls his eyes. “Right, I forgot, you’re a sad rich kid who didn’t do sleepovers.  _ Steve  _ understood.  _ Bruce  _ understood. Topping and tailing, man, it’s where one of us lies upside down in the bed so we’re face-to-foot, not face to face. It’s how guy sleepovers go.”

“Right,” Tony says. “No homo.”   


“No homo,” Clint says, and laughs. “Can’t meet your friend’s eyes in a sleepover. Means you have to fuck.”   


“Oh, shit,” Tony says mildly. “Can’t have that. Okay, you can - tail? Lie the wrong way.”

“Knew you’d make me do it,” Clint says, but throws the cover back and starts to rearrange himself anyway. “Spoiled shit. Is this suitable, my liege?”

He shoves his feet in Tony’s face. Tony ducks away, because it’s Clint and he’d been expecting it.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


There’s not a time limit on the sleepovers - not a  _ strict  _ time limit - so Tony tells himself it’s not on purpose when he sleeps the next few nights alone. 

He’s getting around to Steve. He’s just - a busy guy. Time gets away from him. And it’s not like Steve has brought it up, either. 

On the fridge, the roster is mostly checked out. Three days after Clint, Steve and Tony are the only ones left who haven’t spent the night together.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


It comes to a head in the kitchen - again - when Tony is getting a late night snack. Steve’s in there, eating a scone. Tony didn’t know they had scones, but he never really knows what’s in stock in the kitchen. It changes a lot, and besides, they house a demi-god and a super-soldier, both of whom eat inhuman amounts of food.

Tony nods at Steve as he opens the fridge. “Hey, Cap.”   


“Hey,” Steve says. He rips off another bit of scone and eats it. It has something in it - dried fruit, maybe. Knowing Steve, probably something savory, like ham. He always goes for salty over sweet.

“Been training,” Tony asks as he surveys the fridge. 

Steve wipes his sweaty hair out of his eyes.

“With Nat,” he says. “Still on those midair maneuvers.” 

“Hmm. Does that involve a lot of falling onto mats?”

“It does,” Steve says. “Hey, Tony-”

Tony turns, a wrapped half of brie in hand. “Yeah?”

Steve wavers. Then he says, “We’re out of crackers.”   


Tony looks down at his brie. “It’s fine, I’ll just have the cheese.”

“Alright,” Steve says. He eats some more scone and folds his arms. “Fury’s been asking why we’re the only ones lagging behind in the team bonding exercise.”   


“Because it’s a dumb exercise that Coulson made up to get back at us for the Wisconsin incident,” Tony says. He gets out a butter knife and opens up the brie, starting to slice it into wedges. Then he turns around, hip propped on the counter, eating cheese wedges.

“We’re not lagging,” he says. “I mean - we’re not purposely lagging. We are technically lagging. But we’re getting to it, we’re just busy.”

“Right,” Steve says. He puts the rest of the scone in his mouth and chews. He looks like he regrets the big mouthful, but it’s Steve, so he keeps chewing stubbornly.

“So,” Tony says. “I’m free tonight, if you want - to do the team building exercise.” 

Steve makes a noise, but his mouth is full. He chews faster.   


“You can do it,” Tony tells him.

Steve gives him a look. Finally, he swallows, winces a little - Tony doubts he chewed enough - and rasps, “Tonight’s good.”

“Yeah? Great. I’m, uh. I’m heading to bed in an hour, probably.”

“Okay. I’ll - I’m going to shower, but then I’ll be - should we do your bed or mine?”

There’s a pause as Tony suppresses everything that floods him in the wake of that question.

“Yours is fine,” he says. “I’ll see you there in a bit.”

“See you,” Steve calls as Tony heads down the hall.

_ Normal _ , Tony tells himself as he walks.  _ This is a normal night, you’re just spending it with Steve. You’ve done this with every one of your teammates, this is just another teammate.  _

He doesn’t get a lot done in the workshop. He keeps thinking of Steve in bed next to him, and, unfortunately, Pepper. She’d been the first person he’d shared a bed with for more than a night: usually he snuck out right after sex. The only times he’d actually shared a bed with someone is when he passed out with them. With Pepper, they’d spent almost a year sleeping in the same bed together, sometimes without having sex first. It had cracked something open in Tony he didn’t know he existed. It affected him, the closeness of another person, lost in sleep. It affected him with his friends - it was a little weird, sure, but he found himself oddly touched to have them sleeping next to him. Touched and protective and - proud, kind of. That he has this person as a friend.

With Steve, he feels like it’d be more like it was with Pepper: overwhelming, all-encompassing, the sight of their bare shoulder in bed next to him making his chest light up in a way that has nothing to do with the arc reactor.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


When Tony gets to Steve’s room, Steve is already there. He’s turned away from the door, dressed in a t-shirt. Whatever else he’s wearing is covered by sheets.

He twists towards the door as Tony comes in.

“Hi,” he says.   


“Hey,” Tony says. He’s already changed into his pajamas, the ones he usually only wears when he can be bothered. Most night he goes to sleep in a shirt and boxers. But when he can manage it - which he mostly can’t - he sleeps in red, silk pajamas. 

Steve eyes them, his lips pressed together.

“What,” Tony says, knowing exactly what.

Steve shakes his head. 

“Nothing,” he says, face blank in a way that means he’s making fun of him. “Nice pajamas, Tony.”

“Thank you, they  _ are  _ nice pajamas,” Tony says. He climbs into bed. Steve’s is smaller than most others’ in the Tower. Tony had assumed that Steve would be uncomfortable with too much luxury, and he’d been right. Steve had thanked him since then for designing his rooms to be “normal.”

Unfortunately, this means that while it’s a double bed, there’s much less room than Tony is used to. They’re not touching, but if one of them wanted, he could reach out and do it.

“I can’t wait to see what they come up with next year,” Tony says into the silence.

Steve laughs. It’s half-hearted.

“As long as we don’t have to hide out in a cave and live off fish we caught ourselves,” he says, “I’m counting next year’s team bonding experience as a win.”

“You really hated living in the wild,” Tony says. “I gotta say, that was a surprise. I always expected you to be - boy scout supreme, I guess.”

“I grew up in the city,” Steve says. “My first experience in any sort of... wilderness, was in the war.”

Tony hums. “Not a fun experience? The wilderness, I mean.”   


“Not the wild parts,” Steve says after a moment. “I was always relieved when we found civilization again.”   


He shifts. Tony glances over. They’re both on their backs now, looking up at the ceiling.

“No holidays to island paradises,” Tony says. “Got it.”

Steve snorts. Tony imagines his hair still damp from the shower, then makes himself stop imagining.

“So how’d braiding Thor’s hair go,” Steve asks.

“It went great. I was very proud of what we were able to achieve. Ran circles around your little hair experiments.”

Steve laughs. “Yeah?”

“Oh, yeah. You’re an artist, sure, but I’m an  _ engineer _ .”

“Can’t argue with that,” Steve says, soft. It’s as fond as those smiles Tony receives sometimes, and it makes his heart cinch up.

He swallows. His throat clicks in the new silence, so he says, “Clint says you knew what top and tailing was?”   


“I do,” Steve says when Tony doesn’t continue. “He said you wouldn’t. I said he was exaggerating. Did you not-”

“Nope,” Tony says. “Missed out on that childhood experience.”

He stops. Then, because he always pulls the risky move even when he maybe shouldn’t, he says, “Did you and Bucky...”

“Yeah,” Steve says. He’s quiet for a second. “It was the easiest option. Sharing a bed. One of us would stay over - he stayed at mine, usually. He had a lot of sisters and my Ma worked nights sometimes, so sometimes he’d come over to give his family one less kid to look after and someone to make sure I didn’t choke to death in the night. And - it’d get cold in the winter, and no one on our street had - anyway, we both needed the body heat. So.”   


“Right,” Tony says. “Good.”

He’s struck, not for the first time, by all the kinds of distances Steve has traveled to get here. But then again, he thinks that about every Avenger sometimes.

Steve takes a breath like he’s going to say something.

Tony waits, but Steve ends up breathing out wordlessly.

He waits some more. Listens to Steve’s breathing. Wonders if Steve is tuning out the hum from the arc reactor, which Tony can’t hear, but Steve can, if it’s quiet enough. He’d mentioned it once when they’d first started living together.

“I don’t hate it,” Tony says. “The team bonding exercise.”

Steve pauses. “This one, or them as a-”

“Last year sucked,” Tony says, remembering Steve gingerly holding onto his shoulders and trying not to panic as Tony hyperventilated in the cave. “But - yeah, okay, some of us got good things out of it. You learned what not to do when someone’s having a panic attack, for example.”

“I did,” Steve says. “And I learned more about you. You learned more about me. And we both learned how to fish.”

There had been times, during their cave days, where they had nothing to do but sit around and talk. It had, admittedly, been a bonding experience. Not a  _ team  _ bonding experience. But Steve had sat there next to Tony and told him about the food he’d eaten as a kid, all the boiled chicken and crackers and hard bread they had to scrape the mould off of. In return, Tony told him about the meals Jarvis taught him to make.

“You didn’t learn how to fish,” Tony says. “You learned how to grab fish from the water with your super-soldier reflexes.”

“That’s a form of fishing.”

“No it’s not, you fish with a rod-”

“Some people grab the fish, Tony.”

“That’s not-”

“If you  _ can  _ grab the fish, why wouldn’t you just do it? Why do you need a rod?”

“Forget it,” Tony says. “We’re not having this argument again.”

Steve nods. Tony watches the shape of his face in the dark.

“It got us a fish,” Steve says.

“No,” Tony tells him. “Shut up. We’re sleeping now. We’re team-bonding.”

“If you say so,” Steve says.

Tony thinks about turning away. He can’t sleep on his back, he never could. But there’s something about lying here with Steve just in the corner of his vision. He doesn’t dare to turn to face Steve, that would be - 

“Tony,” Steve says.

“Yeah?”

Steve is quiet. Then he says, “I’m glad it was you that I got stuck with in that team bonding exercise.” 

Tony blinks. Steve continues, fast, “I know it wasn’t - you in the cave, that wasn’t a good time, but it’s - anyway, I’m glad it was you.”

He falls silent. A breath comes shakily, like he’s just admitted something.

_ Oh _ , Tony thinks, quiet. Then, again, louder:  _ oh, shit. _

He takes a deep breath, holds it, and then reaches over. Slow, under the covers, cursing himself the whole way, until his hand bumps against Steve’s wrist. It jumps under his touch. Tony leaves his fingers there, against the knob of Steve’s wrist bone. 

Steve’s hand moves under his. It turns to reveal the palm, seeking out Tony’s hand until their fingers slip together. His fingers stroke a hesitant line along Tony’s thumb.

Tony lets out his breath.

“I’m glad it was you, too,” he says.

**Author's Note:**

> Come hit me up on my [tumblr](http://theappleppielifestyle.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
